A review by optionalobjectives
The Two-Bear Mambo by Joe R. Lansdale

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

This is an ugly book that pushes Lansdale's "Raymond Chandler but in East Texas" to a bitter end. The story is part of what's so ugly and it has the most serious violence of the three Hap and Leonard books that I've read so far. The racism is extreme. Some of that makes sense because the main characters are up against a Klan town. I also appreciate how heavily affected and injured those main characters are as the result of showing up in a town like that without a plan. Nobody gets out in one piece and post-traumatic stress is depicted rather than merely named or glossed over. Even so, I don't know if there's much of a point here beyond the difficulty of getting justice in places and situations like the ones in this story. I doubt that there's enough here to justify its extremes.
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